Browse archives: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995

Published on 02/02/1998 All articles from this issue

Council, planning commission consider review of design guidelines

printer friendly version

By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

People want to build their two-story Mediterranean 3,500-square-foot dream house and max out the square-footage of their 2,400-square-foot existing ranch house.

Not on my street, neighbors say.

As a result, the city's 1991 Design Guidelines have been coming under attack.

"There is greater and greater pressure to approve designs that are markedly different," said Rich Abdalah, chairman of the Los Altos Planning Commission. "What do you want us to do?" he asked the city council at the Feb. 4 joint study session of the city council and the planning commission that met to discuss the city's design guidelines.

"It's a classic problem of private rights vs. what the neighbors want," said City Manager Dianne Gershuny.

During the study session, planning commissioners and city council members worked on identifying parts of the design guidelines they felt should be reviewed.

"There are neighborhood compatibility issues," said planning commissioner Linn Winterbotham.

He listed things he felt would be good to include with a planning department application that could help the planning commissioners assess the issue of neighborhood compatibility.

Some of these are:

setbacks and elevations of neighboring houses so they can see adjacent neighbors in their relationship to a project;

a concept statement about what the drawings aren't showing.

"Everybody can explain a house from the inside out," said planning commissioner Jeff Warmoth. "We want the outside in."

City Councilman Francis La Poll said, "I don't want 'A' for effort if the outside is really bad and an insult to the neighborhood."

Abdalah said that "people will be knocking down houses and building new ones. That will be the overriding issue in the next 10-20 years."

Planning commissioners had questions for the city council.

"Do we let people go with a change in style or build only what we have?" Penny Lave asked.

"If the design is nice in and of itself but not compatible, is that OK?" Abdalah asked.

"Is beautiful design enough?" La Poll asked. "No," he said.

"There's a clear signal that something needs to change," Gershuny said, of the existing design guidelines.

"Maybe council needs to say 'no' to second stories in a one-story neighborhood," Lave said.

"My goal," said Mayor Kris Casto, "is to stop the neighborhood dissension. We want to build neighborhoods. I'm more concerned about contention in the neighborhoods. What's happening now is that neighbors are pointing fingers."

At the end of the session people seemed in agreement that the guidelines needed review, a list of topics needing attention was drafted, but a timeline for the process was not set.